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> I would imagine this means writing TouchBar (autocorrect on my iPhone hasn't learned that one yet) support into MacOS apps means developing a watchOS extension to bundle with the app, which seems really simple and elegant.

Nope. Apps customize the Touch Bar using AppKit inside their app's code; there's no third-party code running on the Touch Bar's processor at any point. The Touch Bar has a little bit of intelligence (it's responsible for the Touch ID and Apple Pay UIs, and supposedly can display traditional function keys independent of the OS for use in dual-boot situations), but it appears to be mostly just receiving and displaying a framebuffer that's rendered and provided to it by the host machine, then forwarding touch events back to the host machine for interaction with the UI.

> Very clever. Basically seems to allow the continuity, notification sharing, proximity and Apple Pay features of an Apple Watch or iPhone by slapping what is effectively an Apple Watch right into the chassis. Very little new functionality would have to be written into the OS, because it doesn't have to know about the extra control surface features, it can just pass messages a'la handoff/continuity.

Interesting viewpoint that makes me reconsider my thoughts on the Touch Bar. Thanks for writing this comment.

Just thinking how awesome that would be for sequencing software, photoshop, 3D rendering software etc! I'm pretty excited about the Touch Bar, new screen and battery life...